Conventional meetings can be in-person meetings, telephone conferencing meetings and/or online conference meetings. An online conference meeting allows users to connect to a meeting via the Internet. An online conference meeting, such as a WebEx™ meeting, can be referred to as web plus phone sharing or web conferencing. For example, users can participate via a telephone, smart phone, tablet, laptop and/or computer. Online conference meetings allow users to share audio and desktop sharing. Desktop sharing can include sharing presentations such as a PowerPoint™ presentation, documents such as a Word™ document, a web browser or other content that can be displayed on a display screen of a device coupled to an online conference meeting via a network.
A common problem encountered in conventional meetings is attendance. Typically the participants can include one or more hosts, presenters, key audience members and/or important audience members. Depending on which participant or participants cannot attend a meeting, the meeting can go on as scheduled, postponed, or in some cases, never even occur. Even if the meeting goes on as scheduled, missing a participant can impact the effectiveness of the meeting. When one or more participants cannot attend a meeting, several approaches can occur. One approach is to re-schedule the meeting provided a mutual time can be agreed upon. When a deadline is approaching, finding a mutual time can be difficult. Another approach is to split the meeting into multiple meetings. However, having multiple meetings can take more time and can require specific participants to be at each meeting. If a key audience member cannot attend each of the meetings, then one or more of the meetings may have to be rescheduled. If one or more presenters cannot attend a meeting, the one or more presenters can send materials prior to the meeting. However, the participants may need to read the material before the meeting and/or if they have a question, the question may not be answered until after the meeting. If a meeting is recorded, content that is not shared during the meeting due to a participant's absence may not be available for future reference. When multiple presenters are required, the absence of a first presenter can impact the effectiveness of a second presenter.